The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1887-06-26
BITTER CREEKS BAD MAN.
The Original Citizen Who Made Life Miser-
able for Many Persons.

able for Many Persons.
San Francisco Examiner
81 admit that 1 from Bitter creek" said
w F. Robbins, at the Russ House. yesterday.
II can't help it. 1 from there, and now
can't very we'll get away for keeps. Besides.
why shonld II am doing very well there and
But get little weary. Everywhere l go,
when put down my NAME the fool clerk says
".Ob, ahal You're the Bad Man from Bitter
creek, your
These things make me weary. New to the
idiotic clerks and Others perhaps, who make the
remark but awfully old to me.
You say you half supposed this Bitter creek,
or at least the Bad Man part of it. to be hypo-
theticall Not bit of it. Consult your map.
You'll find one Bitter creek in Wyoming, two in
Arizona one and possibly two in Utah, one in
Montana and one in California Almost all are
small streams or they would be called rivers, as
you may suppose
'Well. the genuine and historic stream is in
southwestern Montana, and that's where hail
from. The creek is Ito miles long and empties
into the Clark's fork of the Columbia;
The bad man was a fellow named Jim Yount,
an exceedingly rocky individual, who came
there in very early times from Tennessee.
Nobody knew the exact date for he was ahead
OF most everybody else. He was none of your
mild hammered sort of men, as Slade was repre-
sented TO be. Originally. in Tennessee, l sup
pose, he knob-hiller and as he grew older
he rapidly grew worse
Upon nv word. he the most vicious,
viudictive man that 1 ever heard of. He fairly
earned the title. We heard he was a murderer
in Tennessee of three boys, playmates in school.
whom he didn't like He sloped to Missouri and
knitted an old gentleman in whose employ he
was, because the old man insisted on his getting
up at o'clock in the morning.
He blaze6 his way in this manner pretty eff
fectually to the West One of his first deeds,
which the pioneers of Montana recollect, was the
shooting off of both of a bullwhacker by
sJim.
a friend that he thought ne could make center
shot on the transfers big ear The friend
doubted 1t, and he let her go. he struck the
auditing apparatus plum in the middle. Before
the teamsrer could clap his hand on the shot ear,
whack went ball through the other
The bad man then asked the bullwhacker if
be didn't want him to present him with a couple
of ear hobs, since he had such nice round holes
to put them in.
His next deed was to burn a school-house.
some twenty miles away. He claimed the. chill
dren made faces at him he going along
one day, and ned be hanged if he'd have such
kids TO grow up to know any more than he did.
I'm dispute with two confederates bout some
stolen horses, in go. year after this school
house affair. he killed both of them, took all the
stock and gobbled their money He didn't even
bury the fellows, but left their bodies lying
only fifty yards from the corral.
But his best hold was in the saloons He'd
drink a barrel of whisky every few days-no soft
drinks for him-whisky every time. He had a
bleared botched face that looked like chrome.
and his oaths and language in general were some
thing frightful to hear.
II don't recollect a crime in those early days
that he didn't commit. He held up stages stole
bullion and robbed mails with immunity No
! body molested him. Every body feiened not to
know who did it, and every body went around
cringingly asking Jim, they patted him
the back, to take a drink. Quite often he'd get
made at this even, and tell them to have care
how they came soldering around him or he'd
shoot the tops of their heads off.
'Jim played many brilliant engagements of
this sort around Virginia City, in Montana,
Boulder City and other places. His Bitter creek
ranch was only a rendezvous for him, a sort of
central or pivotal point. where he and fellow
thieves rounded up their stolen horses and cat
tie.
Jim along for several years in this way,
cutting. shooting and killing until he boosted
himself that two grave-yards wouldn't hold the
people that he had laid away.
"In 1867. however, Jim made one trip too
often to Helena He had made his record over
there. But the rich placers had drawn host of
bad men there and one night when Jim drew
his artillery on Tom Bests gambling dive apd
began to lay right and left he got ball in his
heart that forever fixed him.
'Of the crowd, though, he killed four first
aud manned for life three or four more. He
was buried out in the foot hills near Helena, and
for long time, and until it rotted away, plain
pine board marked his grave and bore the in
scription